MAPLEWOOD, NJ — The students in the Columbia High School advanced placement studio art class have installed an exhibit featuring their art in the school’s Domareki Gallery, 17 Parker Ave. in Maplewood. The show, “AP 2-D Design and Drawing,” will run through April 22.
“This ‘AP 2-D Design and Drawing’ exhibition is a showcase of work that students have created within my class as part of their technical development and conceptual development as artists,” AP art teacher Kirk Maynard said. “This was fully curated and developed by my class, and it was great to see how students were able to bring their ideas to life as fully realized pieces, which deal with subjects ranging from personhood and social justice to emotions.”
The artwork resulted from students conducting “sustained investigations” into various topics.
For CHS student Veronica Smith-Cooper, the best part of exhibiting her work is seeing other people enjoy what she had made.
“This is the first time I have been able to make things and have them be not just for myself and for my family,” Smith-Cooper said. “For me the exhibition feels like a really great opportunity to present my artwork to anyone and I really like that it’s to other students so my peers can look around and see what their classmates are creating.”
According to Smith-Cooper, her art revolves around bringing her dream worlds to the surface.
“All of my artwork consists of freedom: in the form of free people in beautiful landscapes that you can’t have in real life but I can create on canvas,” she said. “As for my sustained investigation, although it is about Adam and Eve it is still in a utopian landscape I created.”
Student Alexandra Kerstan enjoys seeing how exhibit visitors interpret her work.
“I’ve never had my work displayed for people before,” Kerstan said. “It is interesting to be able to share the pieces and let people interpret the colors and visuals for themselves. I am grateful for the opportunity to open my art up for interpretation and discussion.”
For her art, Kerstan challenged herself to explore emotions and how they are represented.
“My sustained investigation is about showing different mental states and emotions through dreams,” she said. “It’s about how we see ourselves going through tumultuous states of mind through our consciousness. It is a roller coaster of emotions, all in our subconscious, and we often do not have the words to talk about it.”
Choosing a powerful topic, student Daliah Friedland dove into the criminal justice system in her artwork.
“My sustained investigation is about how nonviolent criminals are treated by the criminal justice system and how it makes them feel and the innocence and potential which they still hold onto amidst them being deemed underdogs of society,” Friedland said.
It is the ability to explore such topics that Friedland finds compelling.
“I think probably my favorite part about this gallery is that everybody in some way, shape or form is expressing their feelings on an issue or theme that is important to them,” she said. “I think what’s really important for me … is seeing how powerful some of my peers’ messages can be based on a refreshed interpretation.”
In addition to exploring difficult subjects, student Silas Silverman-Stoloff appreciates how the exhibit has allowed him to truly express himself.
“To me, this exhibit is a chance to be vulnerable as a teenager and authentic as an artist,” Silverman-Stoloff said. “I don’t have many opportunities to share my art with my classmates so publicly and in some ways I find this level of openness unnerving and scary. I am grateful for this exhibit because it is pushing me to be honest with myself as well as my peers and I have found the process to be very rewarding thus far.”
Silverman-Stoloff’s art consists of “abstract depictions of emotions and moods.”
“In my piece ‘Voided,’ I explore the feeling of numbness and a lack of engagement through organic forms eating at the outskirts of the canvas, all in shades of gray,” he said. “I tried to use color and monochromatism as a way of conveying thought and feeling in my abstract work.”
Photos Courtesy of Kirk Maynard
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